Mexico no haven to U.S. fugitives

Those who flee south are increasingly caught by special police squads

MEXICALI, MEXICO — Jason Harrington, wanted on a battery charge in Alameda County, was caught after a chase across rooftops in the Baja California fishing village of San Felipe. Alleged child molester Father Joseph Briceno of Phoenix was handcuffed amid a crowd of parishioners in Mexicali. Tony "The Big Homie" Rodriguez, a Mexican Mafia boss from Indio, hurled threats after being hauled off a street corner by Mexican police posing as junkyard dealers.

All three fugitives had a similar escape plan: Flee to Baja California and leave their troubles at the border. But they ended up back in U.S. custody, as did hundreds of other fugitives in recent years, after being hunted down by Mexican fugitive-hunting squads.

Mexico, offering an anonymous existence in the disorder of the developing world, has long enticed the hunted.

About 1,000 U.S. fugitives wanted for crimes are believed to live in Mexico, according to federal estimates. Many are in resort areas such as Cancun or in border states such as Baja California.

But in recent years, Mexican law enforcement agencies, even some rife with corruption -- have stepped up their efforts to send fugitives back north. Fugitive deportations and extraditions from Mexico reached 299 last year, more than triple the number from 2003, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Among those captured this year was Eduardo Gilbert Nevarez, charged with slaying two people in Lynwood in 2001.

Law enforcement agencies in Mexico get mixed grades pursuing high-level, homegrown drug traffickers, but hustling after common criminals from the U.S. is an uncomplicated way to burnish crime-fighting credentials and accommodate U.S. interests.

Most U.S. fugitives, including alleged rapists and murderers, don't possess powerful protectors in Mexico and their rap sheets make them threats on both sides of the border.

The increasing arrest rates, which also include apprehensions of Mexican citizens wanted for crimes in the U.S., reflect generally improving relations between members of U.S. and Mexican law enforcement fugitive squads, who keep one another on speed dial and meet regularly to exchange information and suspects at the border.

Among the most responsive and busiest squads is the Baja California state police fugitive squad, a Mexicali-based seven-member team armed with AR-15 assault rifles that has captured 40 suspects this year.

"They think they're safe if they make it south of the border. That's just not true," said Mike Eckel, the FBI's international liaison officer in San Diego.

Some of the fugitives are Mexican Americans who blend in easily, though their gang tattoos and accents give away their outsider status. Others settle inthe large expatriate communities along the coast, setting up businesses or living off their past criminal proceeds.

Mexican police bursting through the door is the last thing they expect. Some offer huge bribes or demand to see a lawyer. Others refuse to cooperate.

Alfredo Arenas, the commander of the Baja California state police fugitive squad, is often the first high-ranking police official they meet. He greets some with a warning.

"Here, you don't have the right to remain silent," Arenas, 50, said. "You only have the right to tell me everything I ask you."

It's an effective ploy, said Arenas, that plays on suspects' perceptions of Mexican cops as brutally efficient at coercing confessions. "Our reputation works on our behalf," Arenas said. "We don't even put a finger on the guys and they start talking."

Tracking down suspects was done mostly on an informal basis until the early 2000s, when both countries established or bolstered existing fugitive squads, which are led by bilingual liaison officers.

The Marshals Service is the lead agency in the U.S., though the FBI, California Department of Justice and several local agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, also have liaison officers.

The cross-border relationships can go sour in spectacular ways. Last week, the international liaison officer for the Baja California attorney general's office, Jesus Quinones Marques, was arrested in San Diego on his way to a meeting with his U.S. counterparts.

Also arrested last year was Tijuana municipal police liaison agent, Javier Cardenas, a sharp dresser known for toting a gold-plated handgun.

Both are accused of links to organized crime, but had proved themselves useful to U.S. interests.

Quinones helped create the Baja California Amber Alert program to find missing children, and Cardenas was known for his uncanny ability to pluck U.S. fugitives from the city's criminal underworld.

Such arrests breed guarded relationships between cross-border groups. U.S. agents generally limit information sharing to the whereabouts of U.S. fugitives, knowing that today's hero could be tomorrow's suspect.